I have some skepticism about the future of ffxiv, or at least my interest in it. I haven't fully watched everything yet (I was sleeping during the broadcast) and I'm aware this is still early announcements subject to change but reacting to what I know now:
1. As a WHM main who really hates playing AST, idk what I'm going to do in the future when WHM is nerfed into being even more dumbed down to play. They were really gung-ho about perfectly splitting the healers into 2 mit healers and 2 pure healers but now one pure healer is going to be made for brain dead enthusiasts so... what is the option here? Play AST or quit healing??
2. I predict "evolved mode" is going to be grossly over simplified and boring to play. It will play to a certain comp and not allow for a lot of flex in that comp. But will do more damage. If you dont enjoy playing in evolved mode because you prefer the more complex rotations or because you want to flex a little more in that comp, you are going to get bullied out of PFs and DF. This is opening up a whole new level of ways to divide players.
And it's designed that way intentionally. They want evolved mode to just be the mode people play with, but making such a major change at once will overwhelm players so Reborn mode will exist as a transitional step. But it won't be encouraged to play, because they don't really want people to stay attached to it.
3. This is 100% me: i dont like change. But also I lived through the SB > ShB transition where party buffs became key and SE lived by the perfect 2 min window. I lived through the gutted healer play. I watched this game lose all its class flavor and identity and guess what? It really killed my enjoyment of the game. It ruined healing. It made playing a lot of classes feel unsatisfying. I went from playing every day to really not enjoying playing much at all.
And I feel like this is going to be that all over again. We're once more gutting things down and simplifying them, and because I didnt have a good experience the last time this happened, I really dont feel like this is going to be a good experience either.
4. I like this game, and I like this dev team, but my #1 issue with them is that they over compensate when they feel like something needs to change. There's no middle ground. If a class is "too strong" for one raid tier, its going to be the worst DPSing class the next raid tier. If content is deemed "too hard" by the community, the next change will be making it so easy people fall asleep. There is genuinely no making slight adjustments with this dev team. So if these changes are meant to compensate for the way the game currently plays, I fear just how drastic and bad these changes will be.
I know I feel like a negative Nancy about this, and its because I am. Like I said, I'm scarred from how the game changed the last time they wanted to make a big overhaul. That being said, I know this is based on REALLY early information. I know we dont have all the details. I know theres every possibility I'm just way off base and the game is going to be awesome. And like I said I am working off what I've been reading and been told but I haven't had the time to fully watch the live.
I'm 100% open to being wrong, or sounding like an idiot. But atm I just have anxiety about the whole thing lol. Its feeling like maybe the end of my ffxiv career is upon me and it scares me a bit.
On a positive note, the changes to character creation and gear adjustments is really cool.
